QUESTION: “I just started growing and went from a 8 week plant to growing some OG Kush that I hear is a 10-weeker. I’m in the 2nd week of aggressive bloom. Should I extend the aggressive bloom cycle or extend the ripening cycle? When should I transition to the ripen? How long should I ripen and flush for?“
Dru West: First off I wouldn’t worry so much about your involvement in “aggressive bloom cycles and ripening cycles”. The fact is, you can’t dictate the length or onset of a plant’s life cycles. Regardless of what the label on the nutrients says. There is a lot of hype out there that can be very confusing for the beginning grower.
Remember that you can’t force feed your plants if you want your buds to be the best they can be. It is your job to just make the food available to the plants when they need it. Only add nutrients every other time you water and your will nutes go twice as far. The more excess nutrients you apply to the medium the harder it will be to flush out in the end. This will severely compromise the overall quality of your smoke.
If a plant is an “aggressive bloomer”, it will accept more food than a plant that is not. Not every plant is an aggressive bloomer. OG Kush for example, is not an aggressive bloomer, so there’s no sense in overfeeding it. OG Kush is renowned for its potency, not its huge buds. That’s not to say you cant get great yields off properly trained OG Kush plants.
When learning the tendencies of new strains, it is always prudent to start small in terms of feeding. You can always add a little more later if necessary, but if you give too much now, there’s no taking it back if it does harm. Let the plant do it’s own thing and take note of the weeks in which it displays different characteristics like “aggressive blooming” and use that information the next time around. Then you will know exactly what time to experiment with heavier nutrient applications.
If it is a 10-week plant, that means it typically takes 10 weeks to fully ripen. The plant is going to ripen on it’s own terms and there is nothing you can do to transition the plants into ripening. They are always ripening and are not waiting to be fed in a particular way before they begin. You can’t extend the ripening cycle because once they are ripe they are ripe. To extend would be to over-ripen. Remember it is a plant like any other. What is true for flowers, fruits, and vegetables, is also true for cannabis in many cases. Strawberries are delicious. However, a strawberry picked too early tastes sour and bitter. If it is picked too late, it has lost its sweetness and often tastes rotten.
One easy indicator that the plant is ready for harvest will be the noticeable reddening of the pistils (white hairs). Once approx. 80% of the hairs have changed it’s ready to go.
You should always begin flushing two weeks before harvesting. This means you discontinue adding nutrients to the water you give the plants. First you must leech the built up nutrients from the soil. Do this by slowly pouring a large volume of water through each of the plants. Always apply the water at an equal rate to the pot volume. Ex. 5gal pot = 5gal of water. This must be done at least twice during your ninth week. Then just continue to give straight water until harvest. Starving the plant in these final weeks forces it to consume the nutrients it has built up within itself (which would otherwise end up in your bong and then in your lungs).
Check out my book The Secrets of the West Coast Masters: Uncover the Ultimate Techniques for Growing Medical Marijuana
–@Dru West
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22 Responses to “How Far to Push OG Kush”
Edward
Hey man I am wondering if my og kush is doing okay. You said that a good way to determine the plant is done once 80% of the white hairs are amber it ready to flush, well My girl is about 3.5 weeks into flowering and most of the hairs approx. 50-60% are turning or are amber. I am in Ca and the heat was pretty hot a few days ago now it’s starting to cool down. I am using outdoor; nuts ever other cycle 1/2 suggested amount. BOTANICARE pro blend, cal mag, and liquid karma..I can email pictures if needed. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks again.
All the best
-Edward
admin
We’ll get this over to the MASTERS right away, dude!
Dragonspit415Kush
I dont see any place where at the end you add…1ml of Gravity and 1/2 ml of snow storm and 1 tbl spoon of Mollasis per gallon 1 week before the finnal pull………….trust me it makes a diff…
Jenny
It really doesn’t…
Jay
I live in northern Ca. about 55 miles north of San Francisco. One of my buddy gave me 5 clones of OG Kush to plant outside in the ground, but someone told me it may not do well because this strain is for indoor only. Are OG Kush strictly an indoor strain? Please help.
cutie_gangsta64@yahoo.com
Mann can anybody help me and teach me how to grown a kush plant? Please… If so you can contact me by textin me at 4346887155 my name is kia
Lotapros
I’m trying to make cutie_gangsta64 my “Clyde”!! I needa gangsta!!
Lotapros
Lol…I meant “Bonnie”! But i need that ride or die!!
Ben
I like to turn down the temperature a tad during the flowering to turn my og kush purple…doesnt effect thc level but makes it look cooler lol!
we have some more go kush growing tid bits on http://www.wikileaf.com
TaylorKush
Og Kush is not a outdoors strain I learned the hard way it’s the end of Aug and they just started flowering
smoker4/20
Man I’ve never wanted to post on here I just be reading but I’m having problems identifying ready buds and problems getting buds to lock up like the really good stuff you get from a friend
smoker4/20
Is these ready its been 83 days wow never knew it took so long
ginny
My OG kush only took 7 weeks in flower last grow and it was awesome. ..you cannot tell if it’s ready to harvest unless you look at trichomes. ..very important
Alex espinoza
I have a platinum og kush. I would say it is a indica dominant due to the wide leafs and number of leaves it has don’t the fan leaves are five leafs . that determines the genetic dominance in these strains . all while the other side of its genetics has sativa for a more robust flavour and aroma this is a very highly packed THC canibinnoids producer . from experience in cultivating this strain before I can truly say this bud is definitely a cannibus cup winner .
RemCL
I´m at 33 parallel south… (Chile). I grow outdoors a Dinafem OG Kush…. only 45 days in flower, zero ambar trichomes….. ultra energetic body/mind high, ultra long lasting fly… only problem: I dont like my others strains after OG.
Budz
Hey guys I have a dianafem on kush, I was woundering how long the veg stage take before I switch to flower as this is my first grow!!!
tre
Don’t veg that dreaded more than 4 weeks, I flirted at 12″ n now it’s 5ft after the stretch
Eden Kush
I’ve been growing platinum og for three years now. I wouldn’t grow it outdoor north of Fresno because the rains come too soon anywhere north of there. Its seems to be best at 70 to 73 days flower. Also, stick to organic teas. It seems to turn out best that way. I’m also at 5000 feet. It packs on more oil at that elevation.
stef
Question: So what should the tricomes look like when OG Kush is ready to harvest? Mine are turning amber, but a lot of the pistils are still whitish. Maybe 50% are red. I’m going to start the flush today.
Gnome
Cannabis is like music: there are genre’s and sub-genre’s, many different varieties are out there to be found. In that sense, Og Kush stands as it’s own genre, with sub-genre’s made up of many different varieties.
For example: 92/ghost/Florida Og is thought to be the first Og ever, found in a bag of dank bud. That cut got spread out to Colorado and California, and many seeds came from the bags of Og sold throughout the lands. From those seeds came many of the elite Og cuts around today. Tahoe; sfv, larry, etc… all likely spawned from hermaphrodites, and each are held in high regard. Any “reg” Og seeds you get will be a bx or outright hybrid. S1’s (fems) are self pollinated plants, so you’ll have a better shot at finding gold in those.
As for “pushing” Og, each cut is different. All go 65-70 days, and are medium yielders. Og hybrids and bx’s tend to finish in the same time frame. Some Og are very sensitive to strong nutrients, so build up to a comfortable level so you don’t burn your plant.
If you can dial in a proper Og, nothing will seem to quite match her.
#smokeweedeveryday
Amphernee
High 🙂 I’m growing for the first time and the jury is still out. So I started a plant from a seed germinated in a paper towel till it sprouted. I believe it is Larry OG but not 100% on that cuz I found it as a loner in a gram from the New Mexico dispensary. Every once in a long while I’d find a lone seed and keep it in the container so I’d remember which strain it was. So I planted it in cheap miracle grow for veggies soil on my dryer in a poorly ventilated, not well temperature regulated room with woefully insufficient light source. It struggled all winter (if it were an animal I’d definitely be in jail for mistreatment or abuse) and looked all but done for before I planted it outside in Connecticut in early June. It had been alive (I hesitate to say growing) from about August so roughly 10 months and was only about a foot tall if that with canoeing leaves and a pitifully pale hue. It took well although I kept no records on its progress. I watered it regularly and twice just added more bagged soil to the ground under the plant but gave no nutrients or anything and did no pruning. Its now September and the plant is nearly 6 feet tall. It looks and smells beautiful and I haven’t had any real problems. There are a few leaves, maybe 3 or 4, that were snacked on by, I assume, caterpillars and there was one pair of branch arms that browned, wilted, and died right about when buds first showed up but I have no idea why. They are very low and, excuse my ignorance of terms, but what I might call sister or complimentary branches in that they grow at the same height and at the same time but on opposite sides of the main stalk from one another. Anyway the buds are coming along nicely I think. I’m not opposed to all of the methods and products out there and have no doubt they’d probably increase yield and whatnot i just wanted to try it out. Its just started to get cold here however and I’m not sure what to do next. Some research says it won’t be ready til mid October but we’ve had snow here in the past by then some years. Will the colder weather destroy the plant if its too extreme or just impact the yield? Its nighttime now so I’ll get some pics tomorrow and post them. Thanks for any insight. Don’t let the man get you down 🙂
Organic Meds
Amphernee
First mistake trying to plant a seed from meds bought in a dispensary, you’ll be growing hermies. Females don’t seed unless they are intersex (proper name for a hermie) Second mistake, Miracle Grow is not for cannabis EVER If you’re going to grow grow from seed so you know you’re not starting off with bad roots (russet mites, or root rot) I recommend buying an awesome book called True Living Organics hands down best first time grow book I will guide you the right way to grow